Text “Pipeline transport”.

Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used. As for gases and liquids, any chemically stable substance can be sent through a pipeline. Therefore sewage, slurry, water, or even beer pipelines exist; but arguably the most valuable are those transporting fuels: oil, natural gas, and biofuels. Dmitri Mendeleev first suggested using a pipe for transporting petroleum in 1863. There is some argument as to when the first crude oil pipeline was built. However, some say pipeline transport was pioneered by Vladimir Shukhov and the Branobel company in the late 19th century. Others say oil pipelines originated when the Oil Transport Association first constructed a 51 mm wrought iron pipeline over a 9.7 km track from an oil field in Pennsylvania to a railroad station in Oil Creek, in the 1860s. Pipelines are generally the most economical way to transport large quantities of oil, refined oil products or natural gas over land. Compared to shipping by railroad, they have lower cost per unit and higher capacity. Although pipelines can be built under the sea, that process is economically and technically demanding, so the majority of oil at sea is transported by tanker ships.

Oil pipelines are made from steel or plastic tubes with inner diameter typically from 100 to 1,200 mm. Most pipelines are buried at a typical depth of about 0.91 to 1.8 m. The oil is kept in motion by pump stations along the pipeline, and usually flows at speed of about 1 to 6 metres per second. Multi-product pipelines are used to transport two or more different products in sequence in the same pipeline. Usually in multi-product pipelines there is no physical separation between the different products. Some mixing of adjacent products occurs, producing interface. At the receiving facilities this interface is usually absorbed in one of the product based on pre-calculated absorption rates.

Crude oil contains varying amounts of wax, or paraffin, and in colder climates wax buildup may occur within a pipeline. Often these pipelines are inspected and cleaned using pipeline inspection gauges, pigs, also known as scrapers or Go-devils. Smart pigs (also known as intelligent or intelligence pigs) are used to detect anomalies in the pipe such as dents, metal loss caused by corrosion, cracking or other mechanical damage. These devices are launched from pig-launcher stations and travel through the pipeline to be received at any other station down-stream, either cleaning wax deposits and material that may have accumulated inside the line or inspecting and recording the condition of the line. For natural gas, pipelines are constructed of carbon steel and varying in size from 51 to 1,500 mm in diameter, depending on the type of pipeline. The gas is pressurized by compressor stations and is odorless unless mixed with a mercaptan odorant where required by a regulating authority.

In general, pipelines can be classified in three categories depending on purpose: gathering pipelines, transportation pipelines, distribution pipelines. Gathering pipelines are the group of smaller interconnected pipelines forming complex networks with the purpose of bringing crude oil or natural gas from several nearby wells to a treatment plant or processing facility. In this group, pipelines are usually short (a couple of hundred metres) and with small diameters. Also sub-sea pipelines for collecting product from deep water production platforms are considered gathering systems. Transportation pipelines are mainly long pipes with large diameters, moving products (oil, gas, refined products) between cities, countries and even continents. These transportation networks include several compressor stations in gas lines or pump stations for crude and multi-products pipelines. Distribution pipelines are composed of several interconnected pipelines with small diameters, used to take the products to the final consumer. Feeder lines to distribute gas to homes and businesses downstream and pipelines at terminals for distributing products to tanks and storage facilities are included in this group.